This blog's mission is to improve Cultural Health, by raising Cultural Literacy and reducing Cultural Poisoning.
With respect to Cultural Literacy, I am focused on Classical African Civilization. With respect to Cultural Poisoning, I will help you understand how to Detect it, Correct it, and most importantly, how to prevent little children from catching it.
This site is for Americans in general and African Americans in particular. Video: Politics to Physical Health

Sunday, April 22, 2007

"You heard everybody talk about the Imus Cultural Poisoning event (did you hear Oprah and Snoop?). Now the question is, what is your bottom line. What are you personally going to do to improve Cultural Health, starting NOW?

I saw one of the Oprah shows and the fact that the discussion on Cultural Health (although they do not call it that, yet) has started is a good thing.

Having said that, My input is to alert all participants in the Cultural Health discussion of an important reality, indispensable to the forward progress of the discussion.

Blaming White Racism on Black people, is a dog that won't hunt!

Imus and Snoop Dogg are both examples of the same Cultural Poisoning manifested in two different ethnic groups. Imus needs a good psychologist and a strong dose of Cultural Literacy. Reducing Cultural poisoning in the Hip Hop community requires fixing the ills that the poets of Hip Hop are calling to everyone's attention.

Culturally Healthy Black people have respect for their women and do not use the N-word. So, the question is how do we improve Hip Hop Cultural Health?

I get first dibs on putting shock therapy electrodes on Jerry
Falwell's and Fred Phelps' temples.

Bob Dog

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Ending Biblical Brainwash

For better mental and cultural health, it's time we classified
religious fundamentalism as a psychological disorder

By George Dvorsky

Betterhumans Staff

[ Monday, December 16, 2002 ]

Imagine that you're a psychiatrist. A new patient comes to see
you and says that he regularly talks to an invisible being who
never responds, that he reads excerpts from one ancient book and
that he believes wholeheartedly that its contents must be
accepted implicitly, if not taken literally.

The patient goes on to say that that the world is only 6,000
years old and that dinosaurs never existed. He brazenly rejects
modern science's observations and conclusions, and subscribes to
the notion that after death he will live in eternal bliss in
some alternate dimension. And throughout your meeting, he keeps
handing you his book and urging you to join him, lest you end up
after death in a far less desirable alternate dimension than him.

Is this a mentally healthy person? If you were a responsible
psychiatrist, how could you answer yes? These symptoms border on
delusional schizophrenia, which the American Psychological
Association's DSM-IV describes as involving a profound disruption
in cognition and emotion, assigning unusual significance or
meaning to normal events and holding fixed false personal beliefs.

So, should you insist on follow-up appointments along with some
strong medication? Well, quite obviously, the patient is a
religious fundamentalist. So he would most likely not be
diagnosed with a psychological problem. In fact, such a
diagnosis could land you in hot water; the patient's religious
beliefs are constitutionally protected.

Yet, perhaps it's time this changed, and that we made religious
fundamentalism a mental and cultural health issue. People should
be able to believe what they like, but only so long as their
convictions don't harm others or, arguably, themselves.
Fundamentalism, however, breeds fanaticism and often leads to
terrible violence, injustice and inequality. If society can force
drug addicts into rehabilitation because they're a danger to
themselves and the public, then we should be able to compel
religious fundamentalists to undergo treatment as well.

Friday, April 20, 2007

“People would say to me, ‘You're the black Secretary of State' and I'd reply, ‘Is there a white one?'” he said. “I would say I am the secretary of state who is black. The word black has to come after what I am, not before it.”

Former U.S. Secretary of State Gen. Colin Powell is no doubt a great American. Generally I have found most of his statements and actions to be Culturally Healthy. This is a remarkable achievement for an African American in public office. His speech is a good one, his points about diversity I agree with.

However, think about this particular statement he made, are you your "job" and does your ethnicity come after your job? How does this statement relate to cultural integrity? Do you think such a mind set would have any effect on a person's personal integrity under pressure?

Minister Farrakhan speaks to Arab and Muslim World through Al Jazeera: "“I didn’t mis-describe the administration of the United States. They are liars, and they are murderers, and they are guilty of high crimes, and they should be removed, for they have violated the Constitution of the United States of America, and have violated the peoples of the world,” said Minister Farrakhan."

I plan to use knols in my mission as units of knowledge that are longer then Cultural Literacy Minutes (one or two sentences) but shorter then, and more focused then, a wikipedia article.

I see knols as a write once, link many times CyberTool

I will link to them in my online discussions to add information regarding common repeat Cultural Health questions and/or to address common Cultural Literacy misunderstandings or information gaps. I expect this will save me writing time. I hope others interested in Cultural Health will also find these knols to be time saving information providing links in their own cultural discussions.

Much of Cultural Poisoning is caused by Cultural AIDS (Acquired Information Deficiency Syndrome). The good news is, a cultural knol can be a good antidote to this aspect of the dis-ease.

I am African American, so my focus is African. However, Cultural Health is relevant to all ethnicity's. If someone wants to collaborate on an Asian, Caucasian, multi-ethnic or other Cultural Health knol, let me know.